1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a separating device having a manipulating device and at least one carrier support that includes at least one stacking shaft for workpieces (in particular metal plates made ready for a bending operation on a bending press) disposed on it, and having a gripping mechanism for removing the workpiece from the stacking shaft and conveying the workpiece from a pick-up position into a transfer position.
2. Prior Art
To operate a bending press on an automated basis whereby workpieces prepared in readiness for a bending operation are fed to the bending press by means of a handling device, in particular a multi-axis robot, a known approach is to place the workpieces in a stack on a carrier support, in particular a transport pallet, in the access region of the handling device.
Patent specification WO 03/095125 A2 owned by this applicant discloses a handling device with a gripping mechanism equipped with a vacuum gripping finger and an optoelectronic positioning mechanism for picking up workpieces waiting in readiness and feeding the workpieces to a bending press for a bending operation. With this design of gripping mechanism for picking up a workpiece from workpieces stored in a stack on a carrier support, the gripping mechanism is firstly positioned and then the workpiece is picked up by placing the vacuum suction finger on its surface, but in order to pick it up by means of pince grippers of the type used for specific bending operations means that the workpiece has to be deposited again to enable the gripping operation to proceed.